Above is the the official seal of the Confederate States Navy, showing a three masted sailing ship. It is eriely similar to the current seal of the Department of the Navy. However, in many ways, the image below should have been the logo.
This Southern belle version of "Columbia" holding the First National Flag, while sitting on bales of cotton and staring out a merchant ship sums up the main objective of the Confederate States Navy: get cotton overseas. The image appeared on "cotton bonds" that Confederate agents sold overseas. Sellers of the bonds pledged cotton with interest in order to raise needed hard currency to buy ships and weapons. By all accounts the program was extremely successful in convincing European investors to bank on the South. Stephen Wise in Lifeline of the Confederacy wrote that the agents raised $7 million in cash on $45 million worth of pledged cotton. The bond holders, however, lost millions as much of the promised cotton was never delivered and the U.S. Government refused to pay debts on the Confederacy after the war.
